Sunday, August 19, 2012

What's I'm hoping is that the Sundering is akin to how Britannia was shattered into multiple "shards" for Ultima Online. An official campaign world where there's this explicit caveat along the lines of:

"There are countless parallel worlds of the Realms after the Sundering; no two are exactly the same. The Realms that you adventure in will not necessarily confirm to what official published material and novels state, and due to the Sundering that is exactly what the official status of the Realms are now. Your DMs version of the Realms is what they make of it and it is "official"."

So a DM can run their game in the Realms without worrying about knowing all of the Realms minutiae and needing access to every Realms resource or having to deal with Canon Lawyer players going "Actually in the Realms..."

The same way how in the Wilderlands community you have the Original JG Wilderlands, Necromancer Wilderlands, Majestic Wilderlands, Gabor/Melan's Wilderlands, James Mishler's Wilderlands, Scott Z'a Wilderlands of Darkling Sorcery, etc. and there's not a "Right" or "Wrong" Wilderlands, just a setting for DMs to run fantasy adventures as they see fit.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

"Some legendary abilities purported to be in the province of ninja training include invisibility, walking on water, and control over the natural elements..."
The Esoteric Assassin’s training in the dark arts allows them to carry out missions of death, for with their spells they can infiltrate and slay with impunity. Esoteric Assassins belong to secret societies hidden in cities or based in remote fortresses in the wilderness.
Requirements: Assassin (or Thug) of 5th level with an Intelligence of 15 or higher and a Dexterity of 16 or higher who has assassinated or challenged to a duel and slain an Esoteric Assassin of higher level for the purpose of joining their society.Esoteric Assassins progress as an Assassin but gain the benefits of an improved Saving Throw versus Poison and the ability to cast spells. They may progress to a maximum of the 14 level, and must assassinate or challenge to the duel and slay a 14th level Esoteric Assassin to advance to that level.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

I've been wrestling with how to handle LOTFP Specialists in my Flailsnails OD&D game. OD&D Thieves have d4 hp, set skill %s, and are limited (varying with interpretation) to Daggers and Swords (AD&D pre-UA limits them to club, dagger, dart, swords (long, short & broad) and slings); leather armor & no shields.

Whereas LOTFP specialists have d6 hp, choose their own skills (which is usually a maxed out snaeak attack and stealth), can use any weapon, are limited to their leather when doing sneaky skills and can use shields.

Basically, as I've seen most LOTFP Specialists played, they are analogous to OD&D Assassins (d6 hp, any weapon, leather & shield).

Now I like OD&D/pre-UA AD&D class-based weapon restrictions. Fighters are the bad-asses using bows, pole arms, two-handed swords, morning stars, and the like. In 3E we reached this point where every PC was carrying reach weapons and crossbows and were all members of the Expendables or something, which is cool, but I think OD&D restricted weapons are cool as well and has it's own more-D&D-ish flavor.

Now I want to be a cool flailsnails DM and let people bring in their PCs and play them as they are used to.

Now I was thinking about 3E "munchkin cheese" and how the LOTFP could be seen as the Flailsnails munchkin cheese Thief when I realized something...

...in LOTFP Specialists are forever 1st level when attacking.

Problem solved.

If you play a Thief in my Flailsnails game you are an OD&D Thief.

If you play a Specialist in my Flailsnails OD&D game you are a LOTFP Specialist that forever attacks as a 1st level character.

"...and the spring years are remarkable for a species of fire beetles (oft called jigs) that cavort about the bogs, scores upon scores emitting their fulvous phosphorescence, as the standing males “jig” on their hind legs in most ostentatious displays."

Cracks me up every time I think of it, although I like to think that the displays are both ostentatious and impertinent.

BTW, AS&SOH has some of the best art I've seen in an OSR-ish product. It's metal as all hell without getting into gauche mohawk-y territory, and captures the cold, grim vibe of the setting as written. Plus that cover! It seems like a nice 0.75 ed. AD&D-ish system as well.

No one is sure who the ambiguous villain Jewel Villain truly is; by appearances he is a dashing aristocrat in luxurious hunting garb. He travels the borderlands upon a magnificent steed and is legendary for his golden gem encrusted arrows of amazing craftsmanship.

Tales speak of him encountering lone travellers and from long range firing his elegant hunters bow at them. Most are slain by one of his Jewel Arrows, but those who survive usually have a fortune embedded in their body.

Monday, August 6, 2012

In OD&D and B/XD&D you check once per day to see if there's a random wilderness encounters (Cook/Marsh Expert has allowances for multiple checks per day, buts it's kind of vague).

That's fine but what about in adventure stories where the encounters don't stop? One dude gets eaten by a giant snake, another gets a poison dart in his neck and a third drowns in quicksand. Before noon no less.

To account for this I've worked out an "exploding die" derived wilderness encounter check that uses the sum of an infinite series calculations to maintain roughly the same odds as the original check.

The idea is every day you roll a wilderness encounter check; if there is one, roll another wilderness encounter check and than roll again and so forth (don't worry, probabilities ensure that there won't be 154 encounters). This determines the total number of random wilderness encounters the party encounters over the course of that day.

Clear, Grasslands, Inhabited, City: Was a 6 on a d6, now 1-2 on a d12 or 14%.

Woods, River, Desert, Hills, Barren, Ocean, Aerial: was a 5-6 on a d6, now a 1-3 on a d12 or 25%.

Swamp, Mountains, Jungle: was a 4-6 on a d6, now a 1-4 on a d12 or 33%.